Oystermouth Castle final days

The work at Oystermouth Castle has now been concluded and all our hard work is now done, on site at least. Trenches were backfilled at the end of last week, with only a small amount of work slipping into Monday.

The team of volunteers, students and GGAT staff battled against the elements and the clock on Thursday and Friday to try and get all three Trenches excavated, recorded and backfilled by hand.

Trench 2 was the first to be completed and ticked off the list by early Thursday evening.

Trench 3 followed suit on Friday afternoon – at times it was touch and go as the team in Trench 3 struggled to complete their task.

Meanwhile the remainder of Friday’s volunteers and students set about the task of trying to backfill Trench 1 in a single day, despite everyone’s best efforts and overtime from volunteers and students alike the task was not completed until Monday when a few generous volunteers lent a hand to finish work on site an make the remaining site staff’s lives a lot easier.

All the staff working on the project both on site and from the office would like to thank all our wonderful volunteers for giving up their time to help us out and make this community dig a big success, also thanks are due to students and staff from Swansea University who made up a part of the digging team.

It remains to be seen what the report on the work will conclude and if further investigations will be undertaken next year, the best thing for us all to do now is to wait and see so watch this space!

Day Eighteen - now with added rain!

Last but one day of the excavation at Oystermouth Castle.
Bright and clear start of the day, which helped with the last minute recording in Trench 1 and 3. However, rain started to set in during the late morning, and turned heavy during the afternoon.
The work in Trench 3 comprised the recording of the section in its west end, and the recording and removal of the possible midden in its east end. The central area of Trench 3 was also backfilled with soil. Trench 2 was backfilled today, which took the best part of the day. The volunteers and students were very enthusiastic despite the weather and the backfilling by hand in the pouring rain, we hope they all know just how grateful we are, though whoever buried our rake in Trench 3 is less than popular!!
In Trench 1, the day was spent drawing the drum tower foundation wall in plan and elevation, and the southern sondage trench. No backfilling took place in Trench 1 yet.
Jenni and Ken finished off the majority of the finds washing that remained and we’re glad they did as it leaves us with only the last half days digging finds to process.
Sven celebrated his birthday yesterday with a plethora of cakes and rejoicing, and tonight, the bravest of the team are out on the town celebrating with our Heritage Manager, Dr Evans, on her birthday. Happy Birthday, Edith!

Day Seventeen

Today in Trench 1 Sven had several aims, the first to find the bedrock in the base of the central sondage, and the second to give a date to the fills of the possible castle ditch in the northern half of Trench 1. His team were unable to find the bedrock in the central sondage as work reached the limit of safe working depths, but did find some manmade objects, which help us to show that this is probably part of the castle ditch, in the north section of the castle ditch Sven’s second aim was achieved when a piece of pottery of possibly medieval origin. The focus for tomorrows work in Trench 1 will be to record the foundations of the drum tower.

In Trench 2 work has largely been completed today and the team are eager to begin backfilling of the Trench tomorrow morning!

In Trench 3 the remaining rubble in the east of the Trench was removed at the end of the day to reveal a possible midden! Work tomorrow will focus on recording and sampling this newly discovered deposit, and at some point backfilling!

C Gerrard
GGAT

Day Sixteen

Unfortunately today the weather has been “changeable”, meaning we have had to endure all four seasons every few hours. Due to this, work is going slowly as we all have to keep stopping to take shelter as the rain is occasionally so heavy we have to wait until it stops in order to continue.

Despite all this, a lot has been done today. The top part of trench one has been cleaned and will be photographed (when the rain has stopped) and plans will be drawn up (again, when the rain has stopped as the sogginess of the paper is an issue). A sub trench is currently being opened up against the wall in trench one to see if it is buttressed which will give us a clue as to what sort of structure it belonged to: it’s difficult to say if this is easier or harder in the wet as while the earth comes up in fairly large chunks, it is increasingly difficult to stay upright because of all the mud. The volunteers in the sub trench in the middle of trench one are making detailed drawings of the inside of the trench walls.

Trench 3 have been taking out the wall they found to see if there was any further structure under what was there.

In trench 2 today they found an old padlock as well as half a ceramic bowl but we have been unable to date it yet. They also found a coin from 1928. They have mostly been digging in order to see if there is any correlation between the levels of bedrock in trenches 2 and 3.

By Nicola Main-Reade, student volunteer.

Day Fifteen

Whilst many of our usual students were forced to endure the hardship of a graduation ceremony and formal dinner, those of us who remained were able to enjoy a traditional Swansea summer’s day, with a mix of sunshine and torrential rain. Three work experience students came down to site today to help out with the finds washing on site and do some site surveying work with Rowena.

In Trench 1 work continued following on from the weekend the team today were planning the stone surface in the northern end of the Trench, which may or may not turn out to be a part of the drum tower base, meanwhile in the central section of the Trench a second group of volunteers and students carried on cleaning up and defining the various deposits whose relationships we are yet to resolve.

In Trench 2 more of the rubble was removed, revealing a few small metal objects. In Trenches 1 and 3, much of the morning was spent recording levels, drawing stones and otherwise recording the work, which had been done over the weekend. Once this was complete we were able to clear some of the rubble from the top of Trench 1 and expose more of the possible floor level.

Slightly further down the trench a find was made which radically changed the interpretation of at least six of the context layers: A power cable!
Someone had run a second power line across the trench, through the middle of the ditch, and had left no record of leaving it there.

How much will the power line disrupt the excavation? Will we find a tower? Join us after the break to find out.

By Colin Hough (student volunteer)

Day Fourteen

Paul and I were a part of a team of 7 volunteers who carried out various excavation tasks on site today. We started the day’s work by finishing off the sondage in Trench 1. In this sondage, we made 3 finds which were a unidentified metal object which resembles a key, an oyster shell and a small animal bone, possibly from a bird.

I moved on to the middle section of Trench 1 where I assisted John and John in cleaning up the area, which contained patches of burned material such as charcoal and clay. We photographed our finished work and left the area for tomorrow’s team.

Trench 2: Paul and Cloe began removing layers of soil and rubble to expose the bedrock underneath. They found a mixture of obviously modern plastics, a bath chain and also some ambiguous pottery.

The remaining 3 volunteers (John, Lynne and Pauline) were working in the northern area of Trench 1 around the base of what we think may be the drum tower, continuing work that was begun yesterday. More pottery was found here, as well as a substantial amount of glass and a few more metal objects. The work this group did paid dividends as we are beginning to see what may be more of a structure appearing underneath the rubble.

Michael Summers (Volunteer)

Day Thirteen

A rainy and windy Saturday at Oystermouth Castle today is day 13 of our dig and one of the most challenging yet. Our volunteers for the day ranged in age from 10 to retired, all were eager and willing to lend a hand on one of the less commodious days we have experienced so far in this community led dig.

Our finds specialist Andy Sherman took charge of a group of three youngsters Alice, Luke and Adam and their dads Andrew and David who had come to Oystermouth to spend their day washing and sorting finds. Andy and his team washed and sorted throughout the morning and after lunch working through the rainy conditions to carry out this important task that helps us date the archaeological features we have been excavating and allowing us a glimpse into the past.

Rob Dunning our Project Director guided our volunteers around the site this morning filling them in on all that had been done so far and what he hoped we would achieve today and explaining the archaeology that has already been uncovered in Trenches 1, 2 and 3. The volunteers were divided into two groups and assigned tasks for the morning, Rob decided that we would focus our energies today on resolving some issues in Trenches 1 and 2, that had been left over from the preceding days. Ian and Lynne were working in northern end of Trench 1, attempting to clean up the stone rubble which we suspect is overlying the square base of the west drum tower (similar to that at Chepstow Castle), whilst John and Michael we doing hard labour, finishing off digging out and cleaning up the sondage which had been begun earlier in the week to provide a slice through the archaeology in the middle of the trench.

Julie, Elise and Charles were working in Trench 2 and under Rob’s supervision they cleaned back and dug off the remaining rubble and subsoil spread, which was overlying the natural bedrock. Unfortunately, Rob had to leave us in the afternoon and was unable to see the good work that was achieved despite the downpour that eventually ended our days work an hour early.

Cloe Gerrard, Archaeological Planning Officer GGAT and supervisor for the day.